Black Book - Insurrection (PUBLISHED)

[bluntblade]

So we have. I shall amend it

[simison]

And I have found an error in Untara: "Pionus received [only] the most miniscule of warnings from Medeos..."

 

Also, a Chief Librarian dies just from being in the room of Morro? Isn't that a bit much?

 

Grifft, page 45, second paragraph, "Hell's Heart" needs italics.

[Beren]

Void warfare always was surreal for me. Giving orders, targets, frantically yes, but nothing like ground warfare. Often you couldn't even see the enemy, just the empty void. Even when you did see them, you couldn't hear them. You would watch the iridescent explosions, blooms of light amongst the darkness. But you heard nothing. You heard if your vessel was hit. Heard the groans of a wounded animal, the shrieking of its skin. The cries of those maimed or slain in the calamity. Even then, it was more like a natural disaster, unconnected with the fireworks I saw before me. The rare occasions where my hearts quickened were those where hostile small craft drew close to our points of view before they were torn apart. Yellow and red detonations. For Xenos, sometimes more vibrant and varied hues dependant upon the nature of their power source or the composition of the air breathed by that species.

 

I contemplated this often in the Sanctam. Trying to gain awareness of the lives lost with every tremor thought the ship's hull. The lives taken with each new star we place so briefly in the sky. I never quite succeeded. Perhaps that was why, when the treachery at Madrigal began, I didn't quite believe it. Nor did it matter. Not when they revealed their deceit. Not when members of my own Legion chose to follow them in their perfidy. They were just displays on a tactical readout, not our brothers driving daggers into our backs. Surely a result on a screen did not mean than our brethren were truly betraying us. I gave the orders to fire back regardless. Their ships and ours were just fireworks in the sky. Nothing more. Not until they boarded us.

 

The mortal helmsman, Adellard, was capable enough and in the time scale that is voidship to bookshop warfare such boarding actions took little time. Because of this I chose to lead the counterattack myself. I had to see for myself. So I did. Bolter fire and melta bursts blasting forth at close quarters. Mangled corpses strewn across the deck. The relentless clash of chainsword upon power armour. The detonations here were not statistics read off a screen, or colourful flashes of light observed from a view port. They were things that rent, tore and maimed the bodies of my comrades. Those wielding them: The Lightning Bearers. Harbingers as they later named themselves. We were still reluctant to fire first. We paid for that. They unloaded into us at point blank before their melee units crashed into us. I duelled their captain, though in truth it was something more savage than that. He was elegant in his treachery and I, though I hesitate to admit it, was clumsy in my retaliation. Only when his blade pierced one of my hearts did my fist come close enough to land a telling blow. Saved by the survival strategy of desperation. I threw his corpse out of an airlock,and watched it tumble into space like a ship without a bridge.

 

When a warship dies, be it swift or slow, there is a certain majesty to the scene. The sheer amount of resources placed into its construction ensures it. His death had none of that. Nor would ours. The boarding action cannot have contained more than a couple of hundred. Still, it disturbed me more than when the Dawn Stone's spine broke and it's entrails spewed out into the void. It raised my ire more than when the Mournful Victor vanished to leave a briefly blazing sun in its stead.

 

It is commonly said that one must look at the bigger picture: the grand scheme of things. Commonly known that the most picturesque views are from afar. Perhaps that is because they, like me, do not really wish to see the carnage that lies in the small details. Details such as the starving people within a grand city, the soldiers who die in a greater war or the crew aboard starships who burn or freeze in the midst of battle.

 

When it was done I withdrew back to the command bridge. Adellard was still there, performing admirably. In some ways I think that she was less shook than I. An Apocathary had already confirmed that my wound were stabilised and that I was still fit for duty. I am not sure that I was. Better I return to the comforts of my bridge and it's viewing screens than be left to the recent events that had befallen us. My armour was smeared with blood, both ours and theirs. I would not let it be so again. It is better perhaps that those we once considered brothers be left as objects on a viewing screen. They deserve not even our hate. Merely as much attention required to destroy them utterly.

 

I have not visited the Sanctam since.

 

Halcyon Wardens Captain Amerisk Telden regarding the Battle of Madrigal.

[bluntblade]

Sanctum, no? Otherwise it rocks.

[bluntblade]

And I have found an error in Untara: "Pionus received [only] the most miniscule of warnings from Medeos..."

 

Also, a Chief Librarian dies just from being in the room of Morro? Isn't that a bit much?

 

Grifft, page 45, second paragraph, "Hell's Heart" needs italics.

It was Hesh's request from ages ago. Guess we could put it down to the psychic resonance of Morro's weapons? If not, we can cut it.

[Beren]

Sanctum, no? Otherwise it rocks.

Alexandros mentions them as Sanctams in Second Son. I'll edit it if I'm wrong.

[bluntblade]

Fair enough.

 

It may have been the kinship that the Scions recognised, something about their essence. I don't know about that, and you could have fooled me at first into thinking they were Ogryn or gene-brutes. But then they moved, and I remember that even more vividly than the first time I saw an Astartes move.

 

I'm well acquainted with Ogryn and gene-brutes. When you've served for thirty-odd years in this regiment, under the Scions, you’ll have seen just how varied the Emperor’s armies are. How limited an Ogryn’s awareness is. How vat-grown and grafted muscle changes a man’s posture and mobility. Those things… they didn't match that.

 

Here's the thing. An Astartes in motion is fundamentally other. Everything about it - that implausible bulk generating such speed - is strange to a mortal man, and yet perfection bleeds through it.

 

The monsters were wrong. They were grotesque even under their carapaces of armour. They weren't as obviously terrible as some things I've encountered - they weren't the Qarith - but there was a sense of sacrilege about them. It only made sense when Captain Helonikes and I spoke, after our escape. The Drowned had despoiled a creation of the Emperor’s own genius.

 

We were nothing against their attack, less even than we were against the Drowned. Twenty men would die to fell just one, and even then the Traitors would be in among us. They understood the monsters’ frenzy, knew how to use it. A hole that one made in our lines was immediately pried open, my comrades destroyed by the hundred. They unmade men, always letting the sounds of their pain resonate. Those few of us that escaped the slaughter did so down corridors ankle-deep with blood, and fewer made it off the station.

- The sworn testimony of Captain Magoicha Oka, 14th Yamatar Ashigat

[simison]

As a reminder, I'd like to have a separate remembrancer for the 'Battlefields without Mercy' red box. Blind has offered four suggestions:

 

• Kash Hedesh

• Ka'hesh Desh

• Deshka Hesh

• Desh'ka Hesh

I like the fourth one the most, but am not opposed to any other suggestions.

[Kelborn]

Is it intended that these are all anagrams of Hesh Kadesh?

 

My vote for number 1 or 4

[MikhalLeNoir]

Voten4 no1 pr Hesh'ka Ar Desh

[bluntblade]

4

[Chief Captain Redd]

4

[ShadowSwordmaster]

The fourth option.

[simison]

Is it intended that these are all anagrams of Hesh Kadesh?

 

 

That was the intention. And everybody agrees the fourth option is the best option. Thanks, Blind.

[TheBlindPrimarch]

Happy to be of assistance

[bluntblade]

Blind, the summary you did of the Commena Cluster might be best as a Red Box (in Conquest, the planets are profiled in a chapter following the campaign) rather than the opening chapter. It's a lot of info that a reader could easily get bogged down in.

[TheBlindPrimarch]

Fine by me

[simison]

What's Raiden's rank?

[bluntblade]

Ninth Sentinel. Praetor, essentially.

[simison]

Ninth Sentinel. Praetor, essentially.

 

Does the commander of the Red Oni have a specialized title?

[bluntblade]

I hadn't thought of any, but he could

[simison]

I hadn't thought of any, but he could

 

I wasn't sure if Athrawes had anything, but it seems to me that in a society as focused on honour as a semi-space-Japanese one might be, there'd at least be a fluff title for Raiden.

[bluntblade]

Absolutely. Perhaps we should look at existing Librarius titles and take something related.

[simison]

Absolutely. Perhaps we should look at existing Librarius titles and take something related.

 

Feel free to pitch it. I bring this up because Raiden's sheet has only one title listed. I'd at least like to add his Oni title, and you can add a third one if you want. 

[bluntblade]

Ninth Sentinel, High Magister of the Blue Oni, Equerry to Icarion